MIC208 - VIROLOGY
Prepared by
Miss Putri Shareen Rosman
Room No:01/24
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1.
Naming of viruses
2.
Classification of virus – ICTV, Baltimore
Classification
3.
Baltimore Classification – 7 classes
MIC208 - VIROLOGY 2

• Understands the reasons on naming viruses
• Briefly discuss the classification of viruses
• Explain the Baltimore classification
• Explain the characteristics of RNA and DNA viruses that cause human disease.

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Various approaches, (do not obey the binomial nomenclature) derived from:
1. Named after the diseases eg. Measles virus, smallpox virus
2. Name after the places where the disease first reported eg. Newcastle disease virus, Ebola virus,
Norwalk virus, Bunyaviridae
3. Host and signs of disease eg. Tobacco mosaic virus, cauliflower mosaic virus brome mosaic virus

4. Latin and Greek words eg. Coronaviridae – “crown”
Parvoviridae – “small”
5. Virus discovers eg. Epstein-Barr virus
6. How they were originally thought to be contracted eg. dengue virus (“evil spirit”), influenza virus (the
“influence” of bad air)
7. Combinations of the above eg. Rous Sarcoma virus

Animal virus
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Plant virus
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 Classification of virus been determined by the structural and chemical composition of virus
 Are apply to all plant viruses, animal viruses and bacterial viruses
 Virus is acellular cell – cannot be categorised using taxonomic classification
 It used International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) to classify the viruses
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• Dermotropic – infected skin cell
• Neurotrophic – infected nerve cell
• Viscerotropic – infect organ of digestive tract
• Pneumotropic – infected respiratory system
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 Type and structure of their nucleic acids
 Methods of replication
 Host range
 Chemical and physical characteristics
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 Viruses are not classified as members of the kingdoms
 Do not obey the biological taxonomy
 Generally based on:
1.
Classical - eg. animal, plant, bacterial virus system - eg. naked or enveloped virus
2. Genomic - Baltimore classification
3.
Serology - classification based on Diagnostic virology
- eg. Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) of chickens
(a coronavirus) – 3 different types present, these types have significant antigenic differences, but perhaps very little genetic or biological difference between these viruses.

The following criteria are used to classify viruses:
1.
Morphology – structure of capsid
– presence or absence of envelope
2.
Size of the virion
3.
Type of host / host structures the virus infected
- Bacteriophages: infect bacterial cells
- Plant viruses infect plant cells
- Animal viruses are subgrouped by the tissues they attack:
1. Dermotrophic: if they infect the skin
2. Neurotrophic: if they infect nerve tissue
4.
Genome composition – DNA / RNA
– ds/ss DNA and ds/ss RNA

1.
Taxonomic groups – family, subfamily, genus and species
2.
The names of virus families (family) are italicized
- End in Latin suffix – viridae
3.
The genera (genus) end in the suffix – virus
4.
The species – English common name

Order
Family
Subfamily
Genus
Species
Informally:
Type
Strain virales
e.g Mononegavirales viridae e.g. Orthomyxoviridae virinae e.g. e.g. influenzavirusA e.g. influenza A virus e.g. e.g. influenza A/PR/8/34
Herpesviridae
Alphaherpesvirinae
Simplexvirus human herpesvirus1 herpes simplex virus 1
SC16
In biology, binomial names are used. e.g Rattus rattus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae
In virology, this does not happen:
Tobacco etch potyvirus sounds OK
Influenza A influenzavirus A does not!
Bacteriophage have their own rules

• Viruses are divided into three groups, based on the morphology of the nucleocapsid and the arrangement of capsomeres.
Symmetry of viruses
• Arrangement of capsomers in the virus.
• Two primary shapes of virus is rod and spherical.
• Rod shaped virus-helical symmetry
• Spherical virus-icosahedron

Cubic symmetry

Helical symmetry

Symmetry of viruses
• 2- helical symmetry :
The virus particle is elongated or pleomorphic (not spherical), and the nucleic acid is spiral. Caposomeres are arranged round the nucleic acid.
• 3- complex symmetry:
The virus particle does not confirm either cubic or helical symmetry.

Helical symmetry ( influenza & rabies viruses ).

Complex symmetry ( Poxviruses ).

• The division of the viruses into classes based on genome type and mode of replication and transcription
• Suggested by David Baltimore – Seven Baltimore classes.
• Major groups of viruses are distinguished first by their nucleic acid content as either DNA or RNA
• RNA and DNA viruses can be single-stranded (ssRNA, ssDNA) or double-stranded (dsRNA, ssDNA)

IV
V
I
II
III
Class Description of genome and Example of Example of animal replication strategy bacterial virus virus
Double stranded DNA genome
Single stranded DNA genome
Double stranded RNA genome
Lamda,T4
ØX174
Ø6
Herpesvirus, poxvirus
Chicken anemia virus
Reovirus
VI
VII
Single stranded RNA genome plus sense
MS2
Single stranded RNA genome minus sense
Single stranded RNA genome that replicated with DNA intermediate
Double stranded DNA genome that replicates with RNA intermediate
Poliovirus
Influenza virus,Rabies virus
Retrovirus
Hepatitis B virus

Class I
• Double-stranded (ds) DNA viruses are in class
1
• The production of mRNA and genome replication in such viruses occurs as it would from the host genome.
Class II
• Single-stranded(ss) DNA viruses.
• These viruses form a double stranded DNA intermediate during replication and this intermediate used for transcription.
• RNA polymerase requires double-stranded DNA as template.

Positive and Negative strand RNA viruses
• The production of mRNA and genome replication is much different with RNA viruses (Class III-VI).
• mRNA is the complementary base sequence to the template strand of DNA.
•
In virology, mRNA is said to be plus (+) configuration.
• While its complement is said to be the minus (-) configuration.

How does these viruses replicate?
• Cellular RNA polymerases do not catalyze formation of
RNA from an RNA template but from DNA template.
•
RNA viruses whether plus, negative or double stranded require a specific RNA-dependant RNA polymerase.
Class IV
• Positive-strand of RNA viruses
• Viral genome is of the plus configuration and hence serve directly as mRNA.
• The viruses required other protein, therefore mRNA encodes a virus specific and RNA dependent RNA polymerase.
• Once synthesized, this polymerase makes complementary minus strands of RNA and then use as template to make more plus strand .

Class III and Class V
• Class III (double-stranded RNA viruses)
• Class V(negative strand RNA virus)
• mRNA must be first synthesized, however cells does not have RNA polymerase.
•
To circumvent ,these viruses contain enzyme in the virion,enters cell along with the genomic RNA.
•
Therefore, in this case complementary plus strand is synthesized by RNA dependant RNA polymerase and used as mRNA.
• Plus strand used as template to make more negativestrand genome.

Class VI
•
Single-stranded RNA genome that replicates with DNA intermediate.
•
This RNA virus require reverse transcriptase to copy the information found in RNA to DNA.
Class VII
• Double-stranded DNA genome that replicates with RNA intermediate.
• Required reverse transcriptase
• Mechanism producing mRNA is similar in virus Class I

Retroviruses: are enveloped viruses that have two complete copies of (+) sense RNA. They also contain the enzyme reverse transcriptase, which uses the viral RNA to form a complementary strand of DNA, which is then replicated to form a dsDNA retro , latin for
“backward”
(Class IV) in Baltimore
Classification

Ambisense genome
• A virus genome composed of ssDNA or ssRNA that is partly (+) sense and partly (-) sense.
• Example:
- Bunyaviridae ((-) sense RNA) and Arenavirus ((-) sense RNA)

1.
Can classify between the (+) strand RNA viruses that do (Class VI) and do not (Class
IV) undergo reverse transcription
2.
Can classify between the dsDNA viruses that do (Class VII) and do not (Class I) carry out reverse transcription

 Many ssRNA viruses contain positive (+) sense RNA, and during an infection acts like mRNA and can be translated by host’s ribosomes.
 Other ssRNA viruses have negative (-) sense RNA and the RNA acts as a template during transcription to make a complementary (+) sense mRNA.
 Negative (-) sense RNA must carry a RNA polymerase within the virion.
RNA dependent RNA polymerase –
Class III, IV and V
 RNA viruses must either carry enzymes or have genes for those enzymes in order to copy RNA genomes after infecting a host cell

From Principles of Virology
Flint et al., ASM Press

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• Picornaviridae
• Togaviridae
• Flaviviridae
• Retroviridae
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• Paramyxoviridae
• Rhabdoviridae
• Orthomyxoviridae
• Filoviridae
• Bunyaviridae
• Reoviridae (double-stranded)
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From Principles of Virology
Flint et al., ASM Press

Double – stranded
 Adenoviridae
 Herpesviridae
 Poxviridae
 Papovaviridae
 Hepadnaviridae
Single – stranded o Parvoridae
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